Dean Koontz - The Servants of Twilight

predestined."

" I don't follow you."

She fidgeted, managed to look angry and dispirited and frightened and embarrassed all at the same time. She cleared her throat and took a deep breath and said, "Well, uh, maybe.

just maybe. it's God's way of punishing me for failing as a nun, for breaking my mother's heart, for drifting away from the Church after once having been so close to it."

, SBut that's. "

"Ridiculous?" she suggested.

"Well, yes."

She nodded." I know."

"God isn't spiteful."

"I know," she said sheepishly." It's silly. Illogical. Just plain dumb. Yet… it gnaws at me. Silly things can be true sometimes."

She sighed and shook her head." I'm proud of Joey, fiercely proud, but I'm not proud of being an unwed mother."

"You were going to tell me about the father… in case he might have something to do with this. What was his name?"

"He told me his name was Luke-actually Lucius-Under."

"Under what?"

"That was his last name. Under. Lucius Under, but he told me to call him Luke."

"Under. It's an unusual name."

"It's a phony name. He was probably thinking about getting me out of my underwear when he made it up," she said angrily, and then she blushed.

Clearly, she was embarrassed by these personal revelations, but she forged ahead." It happened aboard a cruise ship to Mexico, one of those Love Boat-type excursions." She laughed without humor when she spoke of love in this context." After I left the sisterhood and spent a few years working as a waitress, that trip was the first treat I gave myself I met a man only a few hours out of L.A. Very handsome.

charming. Said his name was Luke. One thing led to another.

He must have seen how vulnerable I was because he moved in like a shark.

I was so different then, you see, so timid, very much the little ex-nun, a virgin, utterly inexperienced. We spent five days together on that ship, and I think most of it was in my cabin. in bed. A few weeks later, when I learned I was pregnant, I tried to contact him. I wasn't after support, you understand. I just thought he had a right to know about his son."

Another sour laugh." He'd given me an address and phone num-her, but they were phony. I considered tracking him down through the cruise line, but it would've been so. humiliating." She smiled ruefully." Believe me, I've led a tame life ever since. Even before I knew I was pregnant, I felt. soiled by this man, that tawdry shipboard affair. I didn't want to feel like that again, so I've been.

well, not exactly a sexual recluse. but cautious. Maybe that's the ex-nun in me. And it's definitely the ex-nun in me that feels I need to be punished, that maybe God will punish me through Joey."

He didn't know what to tell her. He was accustomed to providing physical, emotional, and mental comfort for his clients, but spiritual comfort wasn't something he knew how to supply.

"I'm a little crazy on the subject," she said." And I'll probably drive you a little crazy with all my worrying. I'm always scared that Joey'll get sick or be hurt in an accident. I'm not just talking about ordinary motherly concern. Sometimes.

I'm almost obsessed with worry about him. And then yesterday this old crone shows up and tells me that my little boy is evil, says he's got to die, comes prowling around the house in the middle of the night, kills our dog. Well, God, I mean, she seems so relentless, so inevitable."

"She's not," Charlie said.

"So now that you know a little something about Evelyn.

my mother. do you still think she could be involved in this?"

"Not really. But it's still possible the old woman heard your mother talking about you, talking about Joey, and that's how she fixated on you."

"I think it was probably just pure chance. We were in the wrong place at the wrong time. If we hadn't been at the mall yesterday, if it had been some other woman with her little boy, that old hag would have fixated on them instead."

"I imagine you're right," he said.

He got up from the desk.

"But don't you worry about this crazy person," he said.

"We'll find her."

He went to the window.

"We'll put a stop to this harassment," he said." You'll see."

He looked out, over the top of the date palm. The white van was still parked across the street. The man in dark clothes was still leaning against the front fender, but he was no longer eating lunch. He was just waiting there, arms folded on his chest, ankles crossed, watching the front entrance of the building.

"Come here a minute," Charlie said.

Christine came to the window.

"Could that be the van that was parked beside your car at the mall? "

"Yeah. One like that."

"But could this be the same one?"

"You think I was followed this morning?"

"Would you have noticed if you had been?"

She frowned." I was in such a state… so nervous, upset…

I might not have realized I was being tailed, not if it was done with at least some circumspection."

"Then it could be the same van."

"Orjust a coincidence."

"I don't believe in coincidences."

"But if it's the same van, if I was followed, then who's the man leaning against it?"

They were too far above the stranger to get a good look at his face.

They could tell very little about him from this distance.

He might have been old or young or middle-aged.

"Maybe he's the old woman's husband. Or her son," Charlie said.

"But if he's following me, he'd have to be as crazy as she is."

"Probably."

"The whole family can't be nuts."

"No law against it," he said.

He went to his desk and placed an in-house telephone call to Henry Rankin, one of his best men. He told Rankin about the van across the street." I want you to walk past it, get the license number, and take a look at that guy over there, so you'll recognize him later. Glom anything else you can without being conspicuous about it. Be sure to come and go by the back entrance, and circle all the way around the block, so he won't have any idea where you came from."

"No sweat," Rankin said.

"Once you've got the number, get on the line to the DMV and find out who holds the registration."

"Yes, sir." "Then you report to me."

"I'm leaving now."

Charlie hung up. He went to the window again.

Christine said, "Let's hope it's just a coincidence."

"On the contrary-let's hope it's the same van. It's the best lead we could've asked for."

"But if it is the same van, and if that guy's with it-"

"He's with it, all right."

"— then it's not just the old woman who's a threat to Joey.

There're two of them."

"Or more."

"Huh?"

"Might be another one or two we don't know about."

A bird swooped past the window.

The palm fronds stirred in the unseasonably warm breeze.

Sunshine silvered the windows of the cars parked alon, the street.

At the van, the stranger waited.

Christine said, "What the hell is going on?"

In the windowless basement, eleven candles held the insistent shadows at bay.

The only noise was Mother Grace Spivey's increasingly labored breathing as she settled deeper into a trance. The eleven disciples made no sound whatsoever.

Kyle Barlowe was silent, too, and perfectly still even though he was uncomfortable. The oak chair on which he sat was too small for him.

That wasn't the fault of the chair, which would have provided adequate seating for anyone else in the room. But Barlowe was so big that, to him, most furniture seemed to have been designed and constructed for use by dwarves. He liked deep-seated, over-stuffed easy chairs and old-fashioned wingbacked armchairs but only if the wings were angled wide enough to accommodate his broad shoulders. He liked king-sized beds, Lay-Z-Boy recliners, and ancient claw-foot bathtubs that were so large they didn't force him to sit with his legs drawn up as if he were a baby taking a bath in a basin. His apartment in Santa Ana was furnished to his dimensions, but when he wasn't at home he was usually uncomfortable to one degree or another.